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decorated and a bit drafty. Damien waited in it with Sasha as three people enteredthe room. The first was Penelope. Behind her came a woman of mature years but fresh beauty, whom he guessed was Lady Trask.
    Last came a man slightly younger than Lady Trask, with red hair just going gray and an air of wise authority about him. Before the butler could close the door, the younger girl Damien had met on the road dashed into the room behind them, her face wreathed in smiles.
    “Papa, you will never guess what happened.” She stopped short when she saw Damien and Sasha. “Or, perhaps you would. Hello again.” She waved at Damien.
    The butler, looking harassed, leaned in the door. “Milady, there is a great lot of men and carts at the front door. Were we expecting visitors?”
    “Ah,” Sasha cried. “It is the prince’s entourage and baggage, at last.”
    Sasha was never happy unless Damien surrounded himself with a dozen servants and six trunks full of clothes. If Sasha knew that Damien had once survived in the mountains of Nvengaria without a change of shirts or even any food and water, he’d faint dead away.
    “What entourage?” Lady Trask asked, looking interested.
    “What prince?” the man next to her demanded.
    The younger girl—Meagan, that was her name—went to stand by them. The four faced him, a unit, together. The younger girl had the same brown eyes, dark red hair, and thoughtful brow as the man. Father and daughter.
    The older woman and Penelope shared wide green eyes, golden hair and a certain set to their features. Mother and daughter.
    Damien said to Sasha in Nvengarian, “No one told me the princess had a daughter.”
    Sasha spread his hands, palms upward. “Nothing mentioned a daughter. The ring passed to Lady Trask, no further.”
    The butler cleared his throat. “Milady, what shall I do with the, erm, entourage?”
    “Put them upstairs, of course,” Lady Trask said. “We have plenty of room. And prepare chambers for the prince.” She stepped toward him, smile wide. “Are you truly a prince?”
    Damien inclined his head. “I am Prince Damien of Nvengaria. You are Lady Trask?”
    “Yes, indeed. Are we not introduced? Good heavens, Penelope, where are your manners? Make your curtsy, darling. He is a prince.”
    Penelope performed a model curtsy that would bring pride to any mother. Her expression, however, remained fixed, her eyes troubled.
    “And Mr. Michael Tavistock, a—er—friend of the family. And his daughter, Miss Meagan Tavistock.”
    Tavistock bowed, as wary as Penelope. When he came back up, he took a step closer to Lady Trask so that he stood at her shoulder. Ah.
    Tavistock was her lover. A man shared a certain close space with a woman after he’d bedded her. He did it unconsciously. Tavistock betrayed, by that slight possessive movement, what Lady Trask was to him.
    That could be a problem.
    Tavistock’s daughter was a bit more enthusiastic. She curtsied, her young smile wide. “Pleased to meet you. The girls in London will be pea green when I tell them I met an honest-to-goodness prince.”
    The entourage was making much noise in the hallway. Over it rose the voice of the butler. “No, no, don’t put that there. Bring it this way, man. This way, don’t you understand English?”
    Mr. Tavistock said quietly, “I think you had better explain yourself, sir.”
    Damien met his gaze. Here was the person who would oppose him if he could. This man was no fool.
    “It is very simple,” Damien answered. He snapped his fingers. “Sasha.”
    Sasha bowed and lifted a rosewood box he’d set on the table in preparation. Turning to the four watchers, Sasha reverently opened the lid. “From His Highness Prince Damien, to the most beautiful Simone Bradshaw, now Lady Trask, princess of Nvengaria.”
    Inside the box, on a lining of black velvet, lay a necklace of old, square-cut rubies. The center of the setting held a ruby the size of a robin’s egg, polished and glinting dull